Young performers in Nanaimo have little in the way of a break from education with the return of Super Summer Workshops.
Hosted by Headliners School for the Performing Arts and teacher and music director Doug Dodd, the fifth annual workshops cover acting, musical theatre, beatbox, improving musicianship, country music singing and live sound for young performers.
The school received requests from students and parents to continue expanding the successful workshops, so this year includes new innovative and creative programs for youth.
Headliners will be presenting seven different workshops in July and August, the perfect vehicle for young people who want to learn and develop new singing and performance skills while still having fun during the summer holidays.
All courses are taught by industry professionals and each concludes with a concert performance at Headliners. Registration for each workshop is $285 for 20 hours of instruction per week.
Students signing up for more than one course receive a $50 discount on each additional course. All materials and daily snacks are provided.
New to the faculty are Nashville performing artist’s Carli and Julie Kennedy, teaching a special workshop on contemporary country music singing.
Also returning is teen sensation Alexandria Maillot, teaching a singing workshop along with Dodd. Vancouver Island Star Search winner Mikaila Tombe will be joining them as a guest instructor.
Maillot’s song Revolution was charted in the top 10 in Europe and she will be soon releasing her first CD.
Returning for his second year is multi instrumentalist, composer and music director Nico Rhodes who recently worked on A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline and the hit musical All Shook Up for Chemainus Theatre Festival and Richmond’s Gateway Theatre.
Rhodes will be teaching the Incomplete Musician, a course designed with tips, tricks and methods that make up good musicianship. Joining him will be guitarist and bass player Eugene Burton and drummer James McRae.
Erik Gow will be instructing Acting for the Stage plus a workshop on musical theatre along with Rhodes. Gow is familiar to Nanaimo audiences for his recent performances in Rocky Horror Show, The Full Monty, as well as his extensive work at Bard to Broadway and Chemainus Theatre Festival.
Kyle (VoxMan) Shepard, lead singer with the local band The Big Mess, teaches a new course on the art of beatboxing called The VoxShop. It is one of the fastest growing musical genres.
To complete the summer is a special course on Public Address Set Up and Sound for Musicians taught by Nanaimo sound engineer and performer Wilson Pascoe.
Space is limited, so for course information, dates and registration, please call Dodd at 250-741-8857, or e-mail, doug.dodd@shaw.ca, or Manda Chelmak at Headliners School for the Performing Arts, 250-753-2323 or info@headliners.ca. Please type ‘summer workshops’ in subject line.
Headliners School for the Performing Arts is at 165 Fraser St. in Nanaimo. For information, please go to www.headliners.ca.